


At the end (or the beginning)

by Overherenow



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8653039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overherenow/pseuds/Overherenow
Summary: Death comes to us all given enough time. But whoever said that a few good friends couldn't be there to make things easier?





	

Its the end of D’Artagnan, he is old. Age has weakened his bones and mind. His skin that was once so fresh and young hangs about his face in folds like that of a heavy curtain. He is the last of his friends, the inseparables. Aramis died not the month before, his heart capable of loving so many finally broke forever. Athos had been killed in an ill advised duel many years before and they had lost Porthos’s the year before to pneumonia.

  
D'Artagnan had turned to God with their deaths; he had grieved for them longer than he had grieved for his dear wife Constance. As while he had loved her dearly there was something between them, the three musketeers, something deep and without end, that bound them together tighter than any friendship that he had ever had.

  
D’Artagnan was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He could see the tears forming in their eyes. His eldest Florence who looked so like his dear Constance was holding his hand so tightly that he thought she might break it. He lifted his free hand to pat hers for a moment startled by the old man’s hand he sees attached to his own hand. “Do not cry so my dear” he says too her, his voice barely anything above a croaked whisper.

  
“Do not strain you father!” she cries out, emotion making her voice stronger that she meant it to be.

  
He shakes his head “Do not be sad for me, my dear. I shall be going to see your mother.” She sobs when he says that. “And some very dear friends.” She starts to cry. Distantly he knows that he should comfort her but he is seeing them. Athos, Porthos and Aramis, they look as young and strong as they did when he first met them. There is no strands of grey in Athos’s hair, Aramis’s beard and moustache is dark and well maintained, he had gotten rid of it before the end of his life and dear Porthos lacks the gaunt grey pallor of the illness that slowly took him from them. They look healthy and strong ready to go on another adventure. The captain is here too looking down at him with a fond smile. They are all dressed in their best dress uniform, boots and capes clean, the feather in Aramis's hat is new and unbroken, Porthos’s bandana however is a little grubby as always, they are fully armed and D’Artagnan thinks he can hear the clink of a horses tack and bit. They are ready to go, ready to race foolishly into the next challenge like young men.

  
“Come on you lazy Sod!” Porthos says trying to sound grouchy but D'Artagnan can hear the thread of good humour running through his voice. It is achingly familiar and very much missed “we’ve been waiting for you.”

  
Athos puts a calming hand on his shoulder “Now now Porthos, let him say goodbye first.”

  
Aramis says nothing but D’Artagnan can see him eyeing up his eldest granddaughter with interest.

  
“You’re all terrible for leaving me alone for so long.” D'Artagnan says to them grumpily.

  
“I don’t...” he hears his eldest grandson say “who’s he talking too?”

  
“We missed you too” Aramis says sharply “now hurry up a die so we can get out of this Godforsaken room. Who decorated in here it looks like it belongs to an old man.”

  
“I forgot how annoying you are Aramis” D'Artagnan tells him.

  
His eyes slip sideways onto Florence “they want you to go with them don’t they Papa?” she says a small smile of understanding on her face even as tears drip down her face.

  
“Now look at what you’ve done” Aramis chastises “you’ve made the young lady cry!”

  
D'Artagnan ignores him “they do” he tells her worried as his voice sounds no stronger than a light summer breeze though long grass “but I’ll be awfully worried about you my dear.”

  
“We’ll be fine father” she says “and I’ll be far better knowing that you are with those three, they’ll keep you safe in the afterlife father.”

  
“They’ve been nothing but trouble to me my whole life” he mutters eyes slipping closed “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  
Porthos slaps him hard on the back “I’ll try not to take what you just said personally.”

  
D'Artagnan looks down at his young strong hands, feels the heavy blue cloth on his shoulder and the cool handle of the blade at his hip. Then he looks at the body on the bed, old and crumpled like a pair of cloths he’s just discarded. Then he looks at Athos “where are going then?”

  
Athos shrugs “don’t know, we were waiting for you” the room he spent his last moments in is fading away the only things still in colour are his companions. “But I’m sure that wherever we end up it will be an adventure.”


End file.
